Page 214 of The Wicked

“Oh, so you’re the reasonable one now.”

“Don’t pick a fight with me; I’m tryna help.”

I leaned on the trunk right beside him, staring at the school bus by the side of the school building. “I’m not running any race.”

“But you’re going faster than we normally do; we might be unable to keep up.”

I shook my head, clenching my jaw. “I just feel guilty.”

“For what?”

“For this,” I said with a sigh, “all of this.”

He looked at me with a frown. “What’s there to feel guilty for? We all want this gold. We all want to go after it. As fucked up as it sounds, we love our new home too. No one’s complaining.”

“What about the vacation? Taking a break from stealing, traveling around the world, giving Milk her American dream? All our plans, cut short, just like that. If I hadn’t thought it was a good idea to steal from Marino, we might be on some faraway island, drunk off our asses in some fancy beach house, wearing nothing but colorful bikinis with dried puke at the side of your lips because you can’t hold your damn liquor.”

He laughed. “Yeah, that’s fucking accurate.”

“I know.” I smiled, but it died down as quickly as it came. “I just feel like if we can do this, find the gold, and the flash drives, we’ll be set for life; we wouldn’t have to steal or commit crimes. We could do whatever we want, go wherever we want, marry a stranger in Las Vegas, and laugh about it the next day.”

“But we don’t have to rush,” he said, looking down at me as he threw the cigarette away. “We don’t have to lose track of ourselves. If we’re careful, we’ll have a lifetime to fuck with life.”

Something twisted in the pit of my stomach. “Yeah.”

“Awesome, so fucking take us along. We work better whenwe do shit together. With Devil’s gut, your determination, Milk’s charm, Upper’s brain, and my fuckery, we got this.”

I allowed a smile to curl against my lips. “Yeah. You’re right.”

He nodded, looking around us. “Perfect timing, cause some other car just came by.”

“What?” I followed his line of vision, spotting the matte black car with all-black tinted windows.

“Shit, turn on your comms,” Dog urged.

Upper’s and Milk’s voices filled my ears when I pressed the small button.

“Guys! Get the fuck out of there; it was a bloody trap!”Upper yelled.

“Why aren’t they responding?”Milk’s worried voice filtered in at the moment I locked gazes with Dog.

Fucking hell.

Dog and I both turned to return to the car, but Devil was already coming out, disarmed, hands in the air as Chika followed, holding a gun to Devil’s head.

I grabbed my gun from the holster, pointing it right at Chika while Dog did the same.

“The fuck, Chika? You’re a bad guy?” Dog sounded genuinely surprised.

“I’m literally dressin’ as Guy fromFree Guy; how the fuck did none of you clock that?”

“We don’t watch a lot of movies, better things to do and all,” Dog said.

“Yeah, whatever; you’re surrounded. Drop your weapons, or I’ll blow his brains out,” Chika said.

“Bloody fuck,”Upper’s voice rang through.

“Wait,” Dog said, “I have a question. Do you really have a job in London where they sexualize your names?”